


you're the only place that feels like home (but you keep changing your address)

by betamax524



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, False Identity, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betamax524/pseuds/betamax524
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this world, the name of your soulmate is marked onto your chest, on the skin above your heart. But what if they decide to change their name along the way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Charles

He's six years old when he gets the mark of a name on his chest, over his heart. His nanny coos over him as she buttons up the dress she picked out. "Erik," she repeats, in a slightly rough accent Charles can't place, "I hope this Erik is good to you, child." She smiles as she fixes the skirt of his dress before she turns to get his shoes. "All right, Frances dear, it's time to go down for breakfast." Charles can only give a half-hearted smile as he obediently slips his feet into the dainty black shoes and follow his nanny down the stairs.

He spends years like this, obediently slipping into dresses and sitting still when his nanny carefully styles his hair. He doesn't tell anyone why he takes such long baths, baths spent staring into the water and feeling something like confusion and disappointment when he looks down between his legs. He wonders if Erik will love him like this, and he tries not to cry.

It gets even harder when he starts hearing voices in his head. He has to listen to people musing about _what a delicate, beautiful girl_ he makes, and he has to hold back tears and try to tamp down the growing disappointment and pain inside his chest. Then he has to stand by his father's grave, and his head aches as he tries to push away the thoughts of _Brian's poor wife and daughter_  whispering in his mind. Mother gets married a little too soon afterwards, and Charles has to come face to face with two men carrying bodies that he finds himself wanting as his own. His body is slowly starting to change, too, and in the bath he nervously runs his hands over his chest. The mark on his chest is slowly shifting, and his fingers linger over the lines. This Erik must have a mark too, and he anxiously wonders if he has to stay as Frances for the rest of his life.

One morning, he wakes up disoriented and slightly nervous when he pulls back the covers and finds red on his bedsheets. His nanny comforts him in hushed tones as he sobs into her shoulders. "There's nothing to worry about, Frances dear, it just means you're a woman now." He ends up crying over the toilet bowl as she rubs gently between his shoulder blades, muttering things like "sensitive child" and "just like her mother" and it takes so much energy to not break down again. Charles settles for coughing weakly, trying to ignore the bile rising up his throat.

That night, he dreams of Erik, smiling at him as they walk through a park. Everything seems like the perfect picture of an idyllic afternoon, but Charles can't help but wonder if Erik is smiling at the body named Frances, and feels a pang of sadness. Still, he follows this Erik, if only in his dreams. He watches swans swim across a wide lake, and only registers Erik speaking to him when he feels hishand being squeezed. "You must really enjoy birdwatching, Charles," he whispers, with an accent he can't immediately recognize.

"Charles?" he repeats. He's only ever whispered that name to himself when he's alone in the library, reading up on history and fairy tales and anything he can get his hands on. Strangely enough, the name feels just right like this, hearing it in someone else's voice. It doesn't give him the sensation of disgust that Frances gives him.

"That's your name, isn't it?" Erik replies, seemingly amused. And it feels just right, standing right here in a dream, but before Charles can say something, he wakes up. He looks up around his room, fingers flexing in the sheets, until he lies down again and goes back to sleep with a sigh.

His nanny leaves after one-too-many arguments with Kurt about his mother, but he's silently thankful that when he tells Kurt he needs new clothes, the man simply gives him money and lets him shop alone. He comes home with shirts and pants bundled under three brand new dresses, feeling light. Soon afterwards, wearing his new pyjamas, he meets Raven. When he confesses how he feels looking at himself in the mirror and in the bath, she shows him how she can transform into anyone. "I like being a girl, so that's why I'm a girl," she says cheekily, "If you want to be a boy, then I think you _should_ be one!" When he takes a bath that night, he gently runs his fingers over the mark on his chest with a small smile.

A few days after he hears news about the war, he wakes up to a different mark on his chest. Where _Erik_ was, now lies _Max_  written in neat letters. He rubs at it worriedly, while questions run through his mind. Does Erik not love him anymore? Has he gone down another path? Or... Is Erik dead? Charles spends the rest of the day confused and dejected, and it culminates in him chopping his hair short and letting Raven cut away the strays. Tears burn his eyes as he wonders if this Max will love him as Erik did, once upon a dream.

Years pass, and the mark on his chest continues to shift. For a year, it says _Magnus_ , and then for a week or two it reads _Michael_ instead. He absentmindedly rubs at it from time to time, but for now, Charles is more focused on completing his degree at Oxford. Some people know him as Frances, others as Charles, and he finds himself constantly having to shift between what seems like two very different people. Sometimes he wonders if Frances and Charles must have two separate soulmates at this point.

One night at a bar, he almost falls over when he senses someone walk in. Their mind shines like polished steel, thoughts buzzing with electricity,and Charles cranes his neck to seek this person out. Someone meets his eyes, and Charles feels that jolt in his mind again as they walk over. They look to be a man, tall and chiseled with piercing eyes, and Charles has to swallow down the rush of emotions in his chest. Somehow their conversation veers toward campus rumors and scandals, and he talks about them for what seems like hours on end as the man opposite him watches him intently. At one point he mentions offhand how one of the deans is apparently a Nazi sympathizer, and the man's eyebrows rise. Nothing seems to come out of it though, and instead the man walks him back to the dorms, where his hand lingers on Charles' face for a moment too long before he bids goodbye and walks away.

He replays that moment in his head for a few days until he throws himself headfirst back into his studies again. He hears of some dean's passing, but he pays no heed. The years go by in a blur as he works on his thesis, coming to ignore how the mark on his chest shifts and changes every so often. He continues life like this, carefree but with purpose, until a woman approaches him at a bar with visions of a diamond woman and a disappearing man fresh on her mind. He bristles slightly when he hears men in suits belittle this woman--Moira's-- inteligence, but he settles for giving them a scathing gaze.

He's maybe thirty-two when Charles finds himself shuffling to safety on a boat, only to end up slamming against a wall when something like polished, burning steel comes into his mind. He feels barbed wires twisting around in pain and agony, and, somehow, the sensation of metal being moved. He shoves his way out onto the deck again, and watches in awe as the yacht they'd been chasing falls apart on itself after being sliced through by a floating anchor. Past the pain vaguely shaped like bullets and furnaces, this mind is shining so brightly, so _passionately_ , that Charles finds himself jumping into the chilly waters to rescue it.

His heart skips a beat when he picks out the name _Erik_ from the man's mind, but for now, he concentrates on making sure they both make it out of the water alive. On the boat, he wraps the blanket tighter against himself as he shivers, both from the cold and from... Erik's steely gaze. It's only when he catches the hint of _don't know his name_ in the air that Charles remembers to introduce himself. "Oh, I'm sorry, so rude of me," he says, reaching out a hand, "Name's Charles. Charles Frances Xavier." Erik's eyebrows furrow and Charles catches the sensation of _surprise_ and _wonder_ before Erik shakes his hand. They make their way back to CIA compound without saying much, and Charles gladly runs to the bathrooms to change out of his wet clothes.

He's absentmindedly buttoning up his dress shirt when he glances at the mirror and almost falls down in shock. He runs shaking fingers over the mark on his chest as his breathing picks up. "Erik," he whispers, reading the reversed letters on his chest. Charles then buttons up his shirt and throws on a cardigan in a rush, and nearly trips over himself searching for Erik's mind, heart beating even faster when he realizes Erik is about to leave, so he waits outside to catch him off guard.

"What do you know about me?" Erik demands, watching him with an intense gaze.

"Everything," he replies, with a smile that he hopes doesn't betray how nervous he feels. He leaves Erik to make his own decision as walks back to his quarters, palms sweating in his pockets. Finally, it seems like Charles finally understands the mark on his chest, and he laughs softly to himself as he gets ready for bed. The next day, he carefully buttons up his shirt, eyes glued to the mark on his chest. He's supposed to meet with the CIA Officer in charge of this place, but he can't help but think about Erik. Even as the man is explaining to him about one of Hank's invention's, he's lost in thought until he senses a familar presence and hears a voice.

"What if they don't want to be found?" Erik asks, and Charles can't fight the smile growing on his face when he turns to see Erik standing in the doorway. _You decided to stay_ , he both thinks and says excitedly. Erik simply scoffs, but Charles senses the _affection_ and the clear message _I was just waiting for you to figure it out_.


	2. Erik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for violence. it's not graphic but its there. also mention of animal cruelty

Some time after Erik turns ten, he wakes up to the name _Frances_ on his chest in neat, thin letters. He absentmindedly picks at it, sometimes, before his mother tells clicks her teeth and bats his hands away. He knows other people have gotten their marks years ago, and he idly wonders why he's only gotten his at ten years old. He doesn't have the free time to muse over this, though, as he continues to work hard at school, ignoring the stares and whispers people give behind his back. Two years later guards turn up at their door and order them to walk. He looks for a helpful face in the frenzy, but almost every person he locks eyes with looks away in shame and fear.

It's raining when he's almost literally ripped from his mother's side, and it continues to rain when it's like he hears the metal of the gate calling for him, and in his anger he screams out and the gate _bends_ as he pulls at it with some other force he can't instantly recognize. When Schmidt tells him to move the coin, he pushes and pulls, but he can only feel something like waves across the room that refuse to follow his orders.

It's raining when Schmidt pulls the trigger and his mother falls to the floor, and all Erik can feel in that moment is pure _rage_ as a scream claws up his throat and he relishes at how every piece of metal in the room crumples at his command. But while the soldiers scream as he crumples their helmets around their skulls, he can hear Schmidt laughing, even as he desperately begs the knives and saws in the white-walled room to save him. Schmidt is still pleased when he places that _damn coin_ into his palm.

He does everything he can to hide the name marked on his chest, but soon assistants are strapping him down to a chair and unbuttoning his shirt, and they don't stop no matter how hard he thrashes back and forth. Schmidt's smile grows slowly as he traces the letters on Erik's chest with the handle of a knife. "Frances," he drawls, "Do you think this Frances would love you, scars and all?" Before Erik can react, he screams as he feels sharpened porcelain slice his skin, cutting up the mark. Amidst his screams, Erik is sure Schmidt is laughing.

He hates it, how Schmidt smiles, but he also hates it when Schmidt's face goes blank. Ultimately, he decides to hate Schmidt no matter what, and somehow it helps him survive. At night he enumerates in his head the many wrongs this man has done against him, and he breathes deeply as he feels the fury growing in his bones and setting his nerves alight. He stops crying and screaming, instead he stares at Schmidt with all the rage he can muster, no matter what's happening. He stares down the assistants strapping him to the chair, stares down the poor soul that has to cut his chest open while Schmidt is out. He's gotten used to the porcelain cutting through skin and muscle, and he simply clenches his teeth and breathes deeply as he glares into frightened eyes.

But no matter how many times his chest is sliced open, despite the scars that constantly grow from being cut into, the mark on his chest stays there. "Stubborn, like you," one of the assistants says one day, and Erik lunges to punch him in the face. He's pushed back and choked for his troubles, and then ordered to spend the night with the dogs for his misbehavior. They find him the next day sitting calmly on the ground, three dogs lifeless and one shivering in a far corner. "What did you do?" the same assistant asks with wide eyes, jaw shaking as he tries not to retch.

"I was _defending_ myself," is all Erik replies, in a voice perfectly calm. After that day, he never sees that one assistant again. Erik's days slowly fade into a monotony of experiments occasionally spiked with the adrenaline rush of terrifying one of the assistants. He allows himself a small comfort that Frances is still alive, wherever she is. When he doesn't have nightmares of gunshots and rain, he sometimes dreams of a gentle voice and bright blue eyes.

The liberation of the camps is quick and messy, and Erik takes the chance to slip away amongst the chaos, bringing nothing but his clothes and a briefcase full of gold. With a bit of that gold he manages to bribe a customs officer into selling him the records of missing men, and the first name he takes is Max. He travels Europe, searching for the people that wanted him dead, all while hunting down Schmidt. He meets a woman named Magda, and he spends a good few months with her, secretly weeding out information from her stories about working in the camps. He has a great deal of respect for her, but he gets the unsettling feeling that she wants something more. That night, he slips out of her house and burns the papers of a man named Max in a field ten kilometers away.

He buys a black coat and begins life as Ian, just as he notices that the mark on his chest seems to be fading. He gently rubs at it, but it stays still. A fortnight later, he has a nightmare of Frances slowly dying somewhere, all alone. He wakes up in an adrenaline-induced haze, and he only stops when he finds himself looking down at his own bloody hands. He carefully washes his clothes, and when he glances at the list of names he carries on him, five have already been crossed out. He leaves the clothes hanging outside, and he takes a train all the way until its last stop. There, he buries all evidence of Ian ever being alive.

Erik continues this system, taking on new names and disposing of them after they are stained with blood. Sometimes he lasts a year and a half with an alias, sometimes no more than a week. The mark on his chest is fading more and more, but he doesn't have the time to worry about it, and one day he wakes up with what looks like two faded names, one on top of the other. On that day he's somehow made his way to Oxford, chasing down a lead. He doesn't realize how long he's been hunting down these bastards until a coy woman running a book store blinks her eyes at him and calls him "young man." He shrugs it off, though, and makes his way to nearby bar for a break.

Walking inside, he feels a certain warmth bat at his mind and quickly leave, and when he locks eyes with someone from across the room, the warmth comes back. He ends up making conversation with him, noting that his shoulders are slightly hunched and his shirt seems a little too big. Then the young man mentions a name, and a department, and he vaguely catches the words "Nazi sympathizer," and Erik knows he made the right decision approaching him. He gives the excuse of it being dark out, and walks the man back to the dorms despite better judgement. Erik is taller than him by a sizable margin, and he can't help but notice the way his blue eyes seem to glow even in low light. He catches himself before he does anything untoward, and makes his way back to his hotel and plans his next move. Sometime around early morning he muses if his Frances would be okay with how he felt towards that man. In the afternoon, he leaves on a boat with a new stack of papers, some stained slightly with blood and tea, stuffed into his briefcase.

Soon, Erik figures out that there's a way to gain information without having to threaten people with their own blood. So he bides his time like this, spending nights with lonely people, who easily lay out all their cards while in bed. The mark on his chest is now too blurry and vague to read, so it doesn't cause him any problems. It doesn't take much effort, and he doesn't have to worry about evidence left behind. He simply slips away at sunrise and follows his leads. A lot of his anger at the Nazis has already been released, so now Erik focuses on finding the man who made him like this.

He's taking a shower somewhere in Switzerland when he notices the mark on his chest has changed. It's clearer now, and it simply reads _Charles_. He remembers how he felt towards the young man in Oxford years ago, and he simply shrugs. Besides, now he has a more sure map towards finding Schmidt, and he looks over the collage of articles, photos and drawings on his wall with something like pride.

When he sees a young mother talking to her son in an Argentinian airport, Erik lets his chest hurt for a few moments before he hardens his heart and carries on. He finally finds the lead he needs in a bar by the countryside, so he catches the next boat to the United States.

Everything happens so fast and Erik finds himself thrashing in the cold water, when he hears the metal of the yacht's anchor and chain calling out to him. He destroys the yacht effortlessly, but he realizes Schmidt is about to leave in a hidden submarine. So he takes a deep breath and _pulls_.

He can feel the chill of the water seeping through his skin, but he ignores it, choosing instead to call out to the metal of the submarine. But then suddenly there are arms around him, and a voice in his head that somehow manages to convince him to let go. They're quickly rushed back onto a boat, and Erik finds himself wondering about this man. He hasn't been called Erik for years. How can this stranger know him when Erik doesn't even know his name? As if sensing his thoughts, the man offers a hand and introduces himself as _Charles Frances Xavier_.

When they make it back to the base, Erik watches Charles from a distance, waiting for him for figure it out. He tries to stay as long as possible, but Charles is trying his patience. So he decides to shock him into making a decision. He packs up the CIA's files on Schmidt (who they call Shaw), and makes his way to the door doing his best to broadcast his intentions. Sure enough, Charles catches him, and somehow both his bravado and sincerity win over Erik. But he waits there until he's sure Charles is in his own room, before sneaking his way back into his own.

The next day, he knows Charles is supposed to speak with the compound's head, so he calmly makes his way to them, having tracked down Charles by the metal on his watch.

_You decided to stay_ , Charles sends, and Erik can't help but scoff affectionately at Charles' surprise. He looks right into his eyes and thinks, _I was just waiting for you to find out_. The pure _joy_ that Charles gives off in reply makes Erik think that it was worth it, waiting this long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of erik's aliases are sort of easter eggs, so feel free to pick them out ;0 "frances" comes from charles francis xavier, since they can be pronounced similarly.


End file.
